Time Essay: TV Goes into Diplomacy

When their television sets at last went dark, the global villagers were
left feeling vaguely unsettled. Seldom has history seemed so thoroughly
televised. As if to validate all of Marshall McLuhan's electromystical
prose, the events of Anwar Sadat's mission to Israel appeared to many
to have been profoundly influenced by the participation of TV its
superstars and its world audience.

CBS's Walter Cronkite served as a kind of electronic matchmaker in
helping to set up the visitthough it undoubtedly would have occurred
in any case. During Sadat's flight from Cairo three of his four...